Games this weekend

Went to the Houston Gamers and learned "Ole," a card game with a sombrero and a cactus on each card. There are four colors (suits) and the cards are numbered from 1-11 (basically), showing their point value Top half of the card is sombrero, bottom is cactus. Points are bad, avoid them.

On your turn, you play a card that is either a "better" color, or higher number. If you do both, you immediately take another turn. If, on either your first or subsequent turn, you can not play, you take a chip worth 5 points from the table. Once someone runs out of cards, or everyone passes in succession, the hand ends.

The twist: At the beginning of each hand, one player (who took the most points last hand) chooses either cactus or sombrero. If they pick cactus, the rank of the colors is reversed.

I came in second. I'm not sure how much of that was clever play, and how much was luck.

There was also an elaborate cake with an entire Settlers of Catan layout in frosting on top. Nice.